


One Way

by pinstripedJackalope



Series: As Above, So Below—As Before, Once Again [1]
Category: The Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Blood, How Do I Tag, Magic, Other, Portals, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Woolsey makes an appearance, this story is a kind of prequel for the next fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22064338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: Will is bereft, hurting with the knowledge that both Jem and Tessa will outlive him, and that if there is ever to be a cure for Jem he will likely not live long enough to see it.  But he wants to--he wants it desperately.  He wants to be sandwiched between his favorite people once again.  He wants both hisparabataiand the love of his life, not one or the other.It's in this desperation that he turns to Magnus Bane with a crazy idea.  A crazy idea thatjust might work.
Relationships: Jem Carstairs & Will Herondale, Magnus Bane & Will Herondale, Tessa Gray/Will Herondale
Series: As Above, So Below—As Before, Once Again [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588069
Comments: 10
Kudos: 36





	One Way

“Magnus dear, you’ve a wet rat at the door.”

The rattle of rain against the shutters of the house nearly drowned out the words, but Magnus heard them all the same. He raised his head from the letter in his hand. It was nothing new—just an update about Henry Branwell’s condition that had been sent the day before. He was using it to distract himself from the unease that was starting to pull at his bones. 

He knew, in the way that one does, that it was time to leave London. He just hadn’t gotten the chance to do it yet. With a sigh, he focused himself on the werewolf standing before him. “Wet rat?” he inquired, setting the letter aside.

Woolsey nodded, his blond ponytail bobbing against his collar. “Quite soaked, in fact. I didn’t want to let him in but the bloody bastard is persistent. He’s in the front room, by the fire. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Woolsey pinched a chocolate from the box in his hand between two long fingernails, raising it delicately to his lips as he looked over his shoulder and strode off down the hall. Magnus, in turn, rolled his eyes. He was done with Woolsey’s showy nature—the warlock could be showy himself, could flaunt himself even, but Woolsey was something else, and that _something_ was beginning to grate on Magnus’s nerves. This thing between them, charming as it was, could only last for so long before they were at each others’ throats. They were at the very edge of comfortable cohabitation. It was time to move on.

First, off to deal with whatever rat Woolsey meant. Magnus sighed. It seemed there was always a rat to deal with. Some little rodent come crawling in, asking for help in this and that, a spell here and a favor there, and on and on and on—he was _tired_ of it.

Still, Magnus didn’t hesitate as he pushed open the door to the front room, his eyes flashing in the light of the fire. There was a figure in front of the fireplace, standing straight and tall with his hands behind his back. He was slender, dark hair curling across his nape. When he turned, Magnus recognized him immediately.

Will Herondale.

He was, as Woolsey said, soaking wet, as if the sky had opened up on top of him and drenched him to the bone. His clothes were dripping, his hair hanging in his eyes. Water streaked his face like tears.

And Magnus, for all his mastery of his emotions, felt all at once bereft, as if the events of the last few months hadn’t occurred and he was still waiting on Camille to please, _please_ come back home to him. It was as if he were transported back in time to the very first time Will sought out his counsel, the first time that Will showed up at his door soaking wet with desperation in his eyes.

“William,” Magnus said, mirroring the words he spoke on that occasion all those months ago. “What on earth are you doing here? Has something happened at the Institute?”

Instead of answering in kind, Will just shook his head, breaking the curious repetition of the circumstance they’d found themselves in. He gazed at Magnus for a long moment, his blue eyes far, far away before he cleared his throat.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come,” he said at last, looking down. “I was… I thought… well, if there was anyone that might help, it would be… you.”

He paused, raising a hand to scrub at the water still dripping down his face. He was still so achingly beautiful, the kind of beauty that burned so bright it left an after-image. Of course, Magnus hadn’t always thought of Will that way—he used to think that there was something shallow, something superficial, about Will. The sorrow now, however, was anything but shallow—it ran deep, deep inside him, only enhanced by the beauty of his pale face.

Magnus knew that feeling. He knew it well. He knew the desperation it wrought, and he was already shaking his head.

“Will… whatever it is you’re here to ask of me, I cannot give it. I cannot bring Jem back from the Silent Brothers just as I cannot bring someone back from the dead. He’s made his choice, he’s—”

“Don’t say gone,” Will said, cutting him off. “He’s not gone, he’s not—there’s a future where he lives again as he once was. There’s a future where he’s cured and he can walk among us again. _That_ is why I’m here, Magnus.”

Magnus closed his eyes for a long moment, ducking his head. Oh, how he longed to be far away from here. From the sorrow that had torn the Institute asunder, that had brought Will to his knees. It was true, he shouldn’t say Jem was gone, but… was Jem really Jem anymore? What future was there for a Silent Brother, a half-nephilim-half-demon, and a shadowhunter?

Alas, even as he thought the words, Will was now striding forward, and the words were tumbling from him, and as he spoke Magnus began to see the future unravel just as Will saw it, a desolate sort of future that tugged on Magnus’s heartstrings.

“Tessa will outlive me by a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand. And Jem… as he is now, he will survive just as long. They’ll leave me behind, the both of them, until one day when there is finally a cure for _yin fen_ and they will be restored to each other once again. And where will I be? A ghost, haunting the institute, both the love of my life and my _parabatai_ having gone beyond me? No. I won’t allow it. I want us, all three of us, to be together. I _need_ it, Magnus. Do you understand what I mean?”

Magnus shook his head. “You can’t just go extending your life, Will. It’s illegal. You’d be no better than Mortmain.”

“No, that is true. But what if I could make it happen within my own lifespan? What if I could _ensure_ that I could be there when they came together again?”

“I don’t—”

But Will was pacing away again, his shoes squishing softly into the wet carpet before the fire. “If there was a way. A way to deliver me to that moment. Do you see? Do you understand, yet?”

Magnus opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. “I…”

Will pivoted, and Magnus stared at the fire in his eyes, the fierce resolve that always seemed to burn within the boy. “There must be a way. A portal, like Henry’s portal, but one that wouldn’t take me to a place but rather to a time. A when instead of a where. There must be something. There _must be_.”

Good gods. The boy was going mad. Magnus shook his head, reaching out to take Will by the arm. To divest him of his soaked clothing and lay him down on the couch and let him _rest_. Just for a while, just until the feverish light dimmed enough to send him home to Tessa. 

And then… and then Magnus stopped. And thought. And slowly reached for a piece of paper from the desk in the corner of the room to start taking notes.

Because here was the thing. There was _something_ to that idea, the idea of a portal, one that moved through time rather than space. He and Henry had discussed it tangentially during the preparations for the siege on Cadair Idris, just for an instant—which runes they might have used to turn the clock instead of bend the earth. It was all theoretical, of course, but…

Magnus raised his head to Will, the boy who burned brighter than anyone Magnus had ever known, and found a smile on Will’s lips. “You can do it for me, I know you can,” Will whispered, and Magnus knew right then that he was in too deep. But of course, he always had been when it came to William Herondale.

The preparations took less time than Magnus thought they would. The portal itself hardly needed anything special—most of its immense power came from the runes carved around the edges, and it was those runes that took the longest to suss out. Destination runes, Heart runes, Spirit runes… runes from the gray book and those from darker sources, warlock grimoires that Magnus had encountered in his youth and whose words still clung like rot at the back of his mind. Soon enough the portal was ready, or at least, as ready as it would ever be to carry out its maiden voyage, the only voyage it would likely take.

“I can link your life force to an event, one that has yet to come to pass,” Magnus said to Will, very serious, as they stood together in Woolsey’s brother’s room, their makeshift laboratory. “When it occurs it should draw you forward to it, like a magnet. That’s… that’s the best I can do. Is that satisfactory?”

“Yes,” Will breathed. “Yes, so very much yes.”

“And the portal itself. It only goes one way. I cannot bring you back once you’re through.”

“I understand.”

“If we get this wrong…” Magnus narrowed his eyes, forcing Will to meet his gaze. “If we get this wrong you will be stranded wherever you happen to end up. Are you still willing to do this?”

“Yes, yes, I _understand_. Would you get on with it already?”

“Fine. Give me an event that I might link you to.”

Will bent his head, his eyes closed, mouth moving silently as he thought hard. After a moment he raised his head again, a light in his eyes. “Jem. When Jem speaks to Tessa again, using his own voice, then I’ll know he’s been cured and his life returned to him.”

Magnus eyed the boy thoughtfully. “You realize he may yet have cause to speak to her before this supposed cure.”

But Will was shaking his head. “He’s gone to the Silent City and he’s expected to remain there until he’s completed his training, which will include the weird mind-speak.”

“…And a cure may never come. Such an event may never come to pass. You understand that, too, don’t you? The risk you’re taking?”

Will’s eyes flicked over, blazing blue by the light of the gassolier. “Even if it is a risk, there is nothing in this world I desire more. I will be reunited with them if it is the last thing I do.”

“Alright, then,” Magnus breathed, placing the final runes on the edge of the circle before them. Light blue light blazed up, lighting Will’s eyes with a fantastic glow. Magnus then leaned forward toward Will, taking him by the collar to carve a Binding rune into his skin, right at the hollow between his collarbones. Will stood stoically through the ordeal, even as blood ran thick down his chest, staining his shirt. 

No other words were exchanged. Just a look, passed between the two of them. One look, and then, with all the grace of his lineage and the angel’s blood within him, Will stepped into the portal. There was a flash of white, blinding light, and… he was gone.


End file.
